Trust me… this eventually gets to something that matters to professional hula-hoopers…

USA just did Independence Day. We’re celebrating the Declaration of Independence signed 247 years ago. The following “truths” were not the truth.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

The authors didn’t treat everyone equal and give everyone liberty. It was a hope. It was a hope that some day they would. America still has that hope.

The words “hope” and “freedom” can sound wishy-washy. They can be used to manipulate people because they’re very powerful. So, let’s use these words to manipulate ourselves into doing great things.

I have a lot of transformational conversations with freelance creatives (mostly entertainers), and I have found that hope is the difference between growth and stagnation. In the book Deep Survival, it’s the difference between living and dead. Believing that something is possible is crucial before we start figuring out how to do it. Growth is required for life. Hope is required for growth.

We got into freelance work for the FREE part. We wanted certain liberties that 9-5ers and executives don’t have. If you made a declaration of independence when you quit your day job, imagine what it would contain.

I want you to feel fueled to fight for your freedom this weekend because you’re doing good stuff for the world and it’s gotta be fun for you. If you feel something is just the way it is, you will stop growing and stop sharing. Instead… Here’s hope.
 

💸 FINANCIAL FREEDOM

From my recollection, every single creative I know can charge more from the same customers for the same service. Some can charge 10x more and some can charge 10% more. If you charge 10% more, you can do 9 gigs instead of 10 to make the same amount of money. That leads to…

😴 TIME FREEDOM

Most of us are working on creating value that nobody appreciates. I’m not talking about doing that extra bit of effort to push our art brilliance over the top… I’m talking about making our websites perfect, or learning a juggling trick that isn’t fun and won’t improve the audience’s response. We can all cut stuff out and get more time freedom. What’s crucial for the life we want? Accept only that! Time freedom is available to you right now. This hour. 

👯‍♀️ CO-WORKER FREEDOM

We want to work with people we like. We have that opportunity. Most of the people we work with are awesome.  Many are on the same mission as us. They’re commited to the same hope. We can gracefully make more time for them and give ourselves space to have all the jellybeans for our loved ones. We gotta find people that inspire us and work with them. We do have a choice. Even you do. Text one person who inspires you.

🦺 CREATION FREEDOM

We saw the power of ventriloquism, but felt like others weren’t tapping in to that power. We wanted to make something new. Then, as our careers continue, we can feel that we are servants of what makes money or whatever.

It’s time to revisit. Instead of elephants leashed with string, we can look at who we are now, what we’re trying to do, and go as big as we are with expression.

🆔 IDENTITY FREEDOM

There’s a part of me that also I see in the most successful people. It says…

“fuckit. if i show up however i want, wild and free, I will create the best stuff, i will be the most loveable, I will be the most prolific, the wealthiest, and the safest.”

Without understanding who I am, or figuring out how to present myself, or what is the right thing to do next… If I show up in my most agile state, I will be powerful.

You at your core are loving and lovable. You’re accepted. You’re dependable.

🕊️ UNLEASH IT TODAY

The hope of freedom is so powerful, it has motivated a ton of people to die in terrible wars. Freedom is available to you and it’s what you generate for other people. I want you to live and thrive and give. My hope for you is that you look for help finding unrelenting hope.

THIS IS A MINI HORSE

& MY SON WITH A POLICE BADGE

Arlo’s taught me to like small things, but it’s not my normal. I like working with people who are thinking BIG and doing BIG things. Boobietrap was not a place to play around. It was a place to be a full-on badass with other killer acts. The people that hire me now are mostly my buddies. They’re experienced, powerful, and generative. Other people are glad to support beginners. I like to collaborate with people who have been in business for years and think they know what they’re not doing.

THE GOLDMINE IS PERFECTIONISM

here’s an example. I just worked with this guy, KS. In less than 15hrs, we got his album released, a new brand, a new aesthetic, network connections with five powerful peers, and two bookings. We built him a website, he did some cold outreach, created an idea for him to become a community hub, and some other things I’m forgetting. He got to take care of all of this because of his perfectionism. He had been wanting to do this shit for 6 years. 

That’s why it worked. He had built up the capital. To him it looked like dragging his feet. To me it looked like 6 years of investment. 

• 6 years of nagging anticipation
• 6 years of recording imperfectly
• 6 years of fretting in the shower
• 6 years of dreaming
• 6 years of contingency planning
• 6 years of talking himself out of truly bad ideas
• 6 years of tip-toeing around relationships that were waiting to blossom

KS hit a point where he just was done waiting and he took charge. He pulled the trigger and gave oxygen to his capital. He mobilized it. 

MY POINT IS… HAVE HOPE

It was instant to convert KS’ capital into useful value. It was sitting there eagerly waiting. Maybe you’re doing good work that you don’t know about right now. Maybe that thing you’ve wanted to do for a decade (redoing your website, raising your rates, redoing your brand, figuring out your finances, making a real business, publishing a book, etc. ) is already mostly done. 

I went to standup shows for weeks before getting on stage. When I got on stage at a mic, i knew exactly what to do.

I went to therapy and meditated and journaled and went on bad dates for years. When I met my wife, i was ready. 

🎠🎠🎠🎠

Mini horses are great for plowing under tables and in hard to reach spots. Other than that, they’re cute and useless. I’m writing to you because you’re not a mini horse, even if you’re cute. 

I love perfectionists. They’re the most fun.

when you’re ready to pull the trigger on something, I’m here to work it out immediately!

Ready is a sign of weakness.

Here we are in August. I never liked it when people asked me “are you ready for school to start again?” Part of it was summer was over. Most of it was WTF does that mean? We bought pencils. I had a backpack. I was going to be in a new part of the school with a new teacher with different kinds of classes with new students. NO! I wasn’t ready for school.

I asked a friend how to know if I was ready to get married. He said you’ll never be ready. Same advice when considering having a baby. Same when moving to a new house. Same when changing something in our business.

Nike is not ready to create the most innovative basketball shoe. They never were. There’s no way to get ready to do that. Toyota is not ready to make next year’s family car. There’s no way of telling if they are ready.

Decide by desire

We want something big, we go for it. We take the risk. We gamble on a big outcome. We feel out of control.

We feel like it’s a crazy idea. Everyone else feels like it’s a crazy idea… except the people who are more successful.

Important things just gotta be done

We can be thrilled by being out of control. The thrill dissipates quickly.

The appreciation of vulnerability is a more sustainable mindset. We are vulnerable. Even if we feel secure in waiting to be ready, we are really not in control there either. We can accept vulnerability and realize that preparing or doing, we’re still specks in the universe. We can figure out what’s important to us and jump into it. That’s fun.

Take action: Say “I am going downhill in slippery roller skates” until you believe it.

If we want to do small ticketed shows, that’s fine and good. It can be a low stakes way to test out some material. Not my jam. For me, street is the way to do that.

If we think we’re making good stuff, we want to charge more for it. It’s gotta be special. Audience members are commiting to a night out just for our stuff, we gotta give them an equal commitment. The commitment that this is going to be good. If the show is the same price as a bad movie or less, I’d rather go to a bad movie where at least i know I’ll get a comfy seat, popcorn, and good air conditioning. I won’t regret going to a bad movie even if I don’t like it. It was worth a try.

People are paying a lot for special experiences now more than ever and are attending fewer cheap experiences. This is the time to try raising prices and seeing how to over-deliver on the quality. Mediocre is worse than bad.

COVID changed things for people. We’re all more aware of what’s important to us and more dedicated to those things.

People would rather pay 1000s for a Taylor Swift ticket than $30 for ______ ticket. Maybe it’s not just because it’s Taylor. Maybe it’s because it’s special.

Take action : research

…what mediocre shows are charging and what the amazing shows are charging. If something’s selling out, it’s in the pocket.

Sometimes (super often for me), we find ourselves involved in unimportant things. We only can do one thing at a time. I think it’s good to do important stuff. If you’re with me, here’s what’s good.

We do this stuff people call “procrastinating” because the cost of doing the good thing seems too high. There are lots of things we can do when cost seems high. Instead of figuring all that out, let’s just get started again on the good thing.

⏱️ Set a timer.

We can set a timer on the phone “hey siri, twenty minutes” … then keep on doing the procrastinating thing until the alarm goes off. This is the way to get away from…

• doom scrolling
• playing a game
• cleaning up too much
• searching netflix
• watching dumb videos
• watching smart videos about unimportant things
• doing work that’s tertiary

We can set a calendar date for…

• quitting a day job that’s taking energy from our work
• quitting a volunteer position
• moving from a home that’s a drag
• firing an employee

We need these delays

We use them for coping, for resetting, for processing the big stuff. We just want to make sure that the coping is the right size in our lives. This is a way of using Parkinson’s Law. Get it done. Get it out of the way… then make the world a better place!

My friends who have “made it” appreciate it and at the same time often hit a cliff. They don’t know what’s next. They don’t know why they did it. They don’t know how to channel that same greatness again.

It’s a lot.

Feeling directionless at this point is normal because feeling directionless at any point is normal. It seems there’s a pressure on successful people to understand success better than anyone else. Really, we’re all dingles.

The funnest way to have a rudder is to remember our mission or our cause. This can give us firm ground. Even if we don’t have the answers, we can have the big answer. Why are we doing this? Why have we always done this.

We can set up our mission and vision and path and projects so that we always have only one thing to work on. We have clarity and fun whenever we wanna tap in to it.

Here’s a worksheet i made for you

Hope you enjoy it!

https://scot.fun/zNN4

I was in San Francisco. A scrappy underdog performing on the streets. Suddenly, I found myself starring in my own theater show with rave reviews and the respect of the performers I idolized. My face was on a billboard. My name was in a theme song. After my show, I would taxi across town to headline in another show.

I was still the underdog. I was still the young performer who had a long way to go. I didn’t know where I had to go. I didn’t see this identity fading away, but a little bit… I noticed I needed a little more ambition. So, the move to Los Angeles – the entertainment capital of the world. I would surely be surrounded by great stage entertainers.

I immediately performed in a show with Emmy winning celebrity comedians. Entered a one-man-show competition. The competition was scored by the audiences. I had no friends in LA and the audience was just friends of perfomers. Somehow I tied for first by other peoples’ friends voting!

I got bummed out. I lost my identity. I know in retrospect, this might look goofy – i felt I was at the top. I lost my underdog identity.

I started working on creating a show about propaganda. Creatively got a job at a marketing company to study marketing and propaganda. My disappointment with my success in performing made me consider sticking with the marketing job ”til retirement.

The World Busker Festival called. It was the biggest street performer festival in the world and they didn’t really call anyone. I was invited to perform. I was Eeyore about it and I went. So ungrateful. Christchurch, New Zealand was a paradise especially for a street performer. People were giving me dinner, taking me a bee farm, giving me clothes, cheering, paying me. The performers were incredible. Beyond what i thought was possible.

I quit my marketing job before I got on the plane home.

Two things happened at that time of transformation.

1. I realized the bar is always higher
2. I remembered being the underdog was never the point of being an entertainer. I wanted to raise the bar for everyone else

These are the lessons I keep learning. I keep humbling myself and taking on the resposibility to be better than everyone. Do more than anything that’s being done. It enlivens me.

Take action: Think of one hero you’ve surpassed. Breath that in. Set that as your identity.

As an entertainer and over-all stage geek, I have a thing where I try to figure out what’s popular. When I was selling tickets for my self-produced shows I was constantly trying to understand why people buy tickets to things. I wanted to understand why people were famous. I wanted to see what made something a best-seller.

I wanted all the people that got me to get to me. When I tried to make my shows popular, it bummed me out. I got tired. I got confused. I seriously have trouble empathizing with people who buy full price tickets because usually i get to go everywhere for free.

It’s not just that popular is generic, it’s that it’s mediocre and mediocre is worse that bad. I like that that previous sentence repeated two words.

Audiences need to be alive. Filled with life. They can’t be disengaged or fake smiling for the sake of the performer. They need to be living fully.

Popular is dead.

Popular is zombie meat – attracting people to a nothing result. Popular is a state with no hope. No pulse. It’s going to a chain restaurant without delighting in the food. We’re here to animate folks. Disrupt and CPR their shit!

Bad audience

(generated for simple explaination)

Good audience

Look around at a mall. You see mummies looking for name brands at low prices. They have no drive. They will get nothing from it. Look at people at a bold art gallery. Something’s happening here.

My success in ticket selling came from doubling down on what I thought was good. My sentinel also thought it was good. My favorite people thought it was good too. They came to trust me being specific and me. I didn’t have to worrry about what people saw or what my identity was. I just stood up for what I wanted to happen with my creation.

Take Action : write down one thing about yourself that other artists often tell you is a mistake. If there isn’t one, make one now.

A study says that 70% of people have experienced imposter syndrome…

defined as… “the persistent inability to believe that one’s success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one’s own efforts or skills.”

I call BULLSH

Every single person in the world has experienced it and keeps on experiencing it. It’s not something that special. It’s not something to cure. It’s the same as gravity. Let’ss live with it. Thank it for keeping us grounded.

This is the disease that is in every human. Here we are. What will we do from here.

Take Action: Try to Find someone more qualified than yourself to fully do what you do. Fail at it.

An email

subject: Not sure if you can help

Hello.My name is ◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️ and I have been practicing magic for about 6 to 7 years now. I started Magic because it was a portable career.I was hitchhiking across the U.S. and it gave me something that I could use to entertain people rather than beg for money or steal or any of that stuff. I mostly do street performing in small crowds 3 to 10 people. And I also do magic at work whenever people request it at the gas station at work. I’m competent and eager to learn and I want to figure out how I can take my Magic to the next step and start actually making some money with it if I even can.

Like I know People get hired for close up walk arounds and small booths and such. How would I approach getting into some kind of gig like that and what would I need to prepare for that. Really?To be honest I have a lot of questions and i’m not sure What order to ask them in or what Information you need for me to be able to Get a proper informed advice. Really? What I’m asking.

I guess is what would it cost me to get a 1/2 hour of your time Or an hour to be able to maybe get some direction to my Career and get A Better Idea. Which way I need or want to go with it? I’m fairly broke right would probably be a goal for me to have to save up towards, especially if especially if it’s more than 30 or $40. I would just like to get an idea from someone who knows more than I do some suggestions.I haven’t had any magical mentors ever And i’m pretty much Self-taught from YouTube And magic stream and various other sources.

I get great reactions from my crowds. And it makes me feel like I want to pursue this more deeply but I’m kind of lost in that kind of sense. Will all stop Rambling and give you a chance to Reply back.

I just heard your podcast with the professional magician. I loved it and felt like you were the kind of person that I could reach out to and hopefully get an honest answer. And get a positive feedback on how I should focus my efforts. Thank a bunch hope to hear back and have a mystical day.

My response

Awesome! Thanks for the note. Street performing has been a major thing for me. It shaped a lot of everything that I do.

You’ve been working at this for a long time and you’re killing it. I’m sure if you’ve done that many performances, you have a certain skill level with fooling people. The next stage in making it a business is making it something worth money. All pros do something beyond tricks. They have an application that’s valuable.

tradeshows, for example

Let’s say you want to be doing $3k days at tradeshows a few times a month. Attracting people to tradeshow booths and doing fun magic and comedy with them. You want to go to the Magic castle a few times a month to hang out with friends. You want to take your dog to the beach every day. In this scenario, you might want to figure out how to turn your magic into something marketable for tradeshow people – corporate marketers. They want a ton of people engaged with their product. You would work on attracting big crowds an pitching products and services.

You could hit the streets hard. Figure out how to do shows that draw in 100 or more people. Become a human magnet. Anywhere you go, you know how to pull a bunch of people together. you’re unstoppable. do 5 shows a day so you can get really good at it and pay your bills at the same time. Maybe you also start a social account where you enjoyably pitch products. you don’t even have to buy them. go to the mall, pull something off the shelf and make it sound desirable. Do two videos a day. Be bad at these things until you’re great.

This kind of singular focus will mean fast progress. It might not feel fast, but if you don’t give up and you repeat repeat repeat, you will be killer.

Then, people won’t even ask you if you can do a gig well. They’ll see you pulling in a huge crowd, they’ll see your pitching prowess, and they’ll know you obviously can make them a lot of money.

Once we have this goal, it’s easy to answer questions. How much do i charge to perform at this kids show? Cash will help me with my goal, but it won’t help me in any other way, so $4000.

Take action

There are a zillion paths for you to take your magic skills. Pretty much anyone is qualified for any path. To get to a really fulfilling destination, you’ll need a big commitment. take some time thinking of the big picture. write down a mission, a vision, and a path. Then, set a goal for 3 years in the future. What lifestyle do you want to be living. I mean really. We imagine everyone would want to live in a mansion, but in reality, mansion living isn’t that fun. Golfing daily is boring.

Any path you take will probably include relationships with people. You said you haven’t had mentors. It’s a good time to connect with other magicians and performers. Send a lot of emails like you did to me. Start relationships with people that are better and worse than you. Make friendships. Share life.

While progress is the part that is exciting (this is the purpose of the LAP), it’s also the scariest for our recipient (or ourselves). The rubber meets the road and we’re not sure how much rubber it’s gonna cost us. This is the point where cost is calculated. The love and affirmation help us to feel safe in taking a risk. The progress is the risk.

• How much time, energy, and money is it going to cost me?
• Is the result worth the cost?
• How likely is the result going to come in this gamble?

So, when we’re asked to do something simple, like “just return this contract signed” we probably have a ton of obstacles / objections that are completely unvoiced.

When asking ourselves or another person to take action, we want to make sure that we take away as many obstacles as possible, don’t add any obstacles, make the result awesome, and build trust that the result will result.

The LOOTERS format of a proposal makes all this smoother for bigger commitments. WIth smaller commitments and shorter messages, certain things gotta be implied.

We can reduce cost

by making the next step we’re requesting be easy.

Send this contract to your lawyers,

vs

Print out and sign this contract

vs

Sign this contract online

vs

Tell me “heck yeah!”

We can improve the reward

by making a clear and believable outcome

and we’ll move forward toward having production meetings

vs

and we’ll continue to the next step

vs

and you’ll be 80% to having your show booked

vs

and we’ll be all locked in – getting it off your plate and assuring you’ll have a great entertainment experience on June 3!

Take Action: rebuild

look thru old text messages that have no response from the recipient. sometimes a response is the only next step you’re requesting. How can you rework one of those messages to clarify the next step? Maybe “send me an emoji and i’ll try to guess where you are”

Laura is talking to Arlo. She’s repeating what he’s saying, then saying it again in her own language. He’s crying loud. He’s shouting what he wants. He is not going to get what he wants. He wants Mr. Piggy to talk on the phone. Laura is my wife. Arlo is my 4yo. Mr. Piggy is the dog.

Arlo repeats. Laura rephrases and tells him that it’s not happening in a sweet way. I fluctuate between wanting to laugh and wanting to move on.

It’s just not happening. This crying and repeating isn’t fun. The shouting doesn’t get us anywhere. We have plenty of fun things to do right now. Let’s move on it!

I sit and observe. Laura’s right. She’s affirming. She’s staying present in the situation with Arlo so that he can process what’s happening. Confronting it and noticing it and logging it will help him understand it. It will help him figure out what it means. It will help him practice appreciating that the feelings don’t always match the situation. It will reinforce that he’s safe.

We all need this affirmation.

My fear when trying to affirm is that I’ll be stuck in wallowing or celebrating and will never progress. This fear can prevent me from feeling myself or connecting with others.

The second step in LAP is affirmation. It’s very important. It’s important to affirm the whole picture too.

Take action: notice something mirky

Think of something that’s kinda been abandoned in your life – your health, your finances, a relationship, the cleanliness of your shoes. Make a true statement to yourself about it. Take in the whole picture and describe it and how you feel about it.